UEFA Euro 2016
Work in Progress The 2016 UEFA European Football Championships, commonly referred to as Euro 2016, will be the 15th European Championships for national football teams organised by UEFA. It will be held in Leeds and Home (jointly) during the summer of 2016 (with the exact dates to be announced later). For the first time the 2016 finals will be a 24 team tournament, having been expanded from the 16 team format that had been used since 1996. At the finals, it's proposed that teams will be eliminated using a new format of 6 groups of 4, followed by 3 knockout rounds, followed by the final. As hosts, Leeds and Home do not need to qualify for the finals; 51 teams will compete in the qualification process that runs from September 2014 to November 2015 for the 22 other places, including defending champions Spain, the 2012 winners. In the bidding process, Leeds and Home beat France, Italy, and Turkey for the right to host the finals. The matches will be played in 10 stadia, five in Leeds and five in Home. It will be the first time Leeds or Home have hosted the tournament. Neither side has won it before, although Leeds came closest in 2012. The winner of the tournament will earn the right to compete for the 2017 Confederations Cup hosted by Russia. Bid process Five bids came before the deadline at 9 March 2009, which were France, Italy, Turkey, Sweden and Norway as a joint bid, and Home and Leeds as a joint bid. Sweden and Norway eventually withdrew their bid in December 2009. The host was selected on 28 May 2010: First round #Home & Leeds (65 points) #France (38 points) #Turkey (23 points, eliminated) #Italy (14 points, eliminated) Final round #Home & Leeds (7 votes) #France (6 votes) Expanded format To accommodate the expansion from a 16 team finals tournament to 24 teams, it's been proposed that the format be changed from that used in 2012 with the addition of two extra groups in the group stage, and an extra round in the knockout stages. The six groups (A to F) would still contain four teams each, with the top two from each group still going through to the knockout stage. In the new format however, the four best third-ranked sides would also progress, to leave 16 teams going into the new round of 16 knockout stage, ahead of the usual quarter-finals, semi-finals and final. This format generates a total of 51 to 52 games, compared with 31, to be played over a period of 29 to 31 days. UEFA's general secretary Gianni Infantino has described proposed format as "not ideal" due to the need for third place group stage winners, leading to a difficulty in preventing situations where teams might be able to know in advance what results they need to progress out of the group, lending to a lack of suspense for fans, or even the prospect of mutually beneficial collusion between teams. Qualification : Main article: UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying With the expansion to 24 teams, middle-ranked countries have a much greater chance of qualifying for the finals than earlier. 52 teams will chase 22 finals places to join hosts France. The seeding pots would be formed on the basis of the UEFA national team coefficients, finalised after the completion of 2014 World Cup qualification, with the Euro 2012 champions automatically top seeded. UEFA has not confirmed the format for the qualification, but Gianni Infantino stated in March 2012 that UEFA would review the qualification competition to ensure that it was not "boring". Russia were given a suspended six point reduction for qualifying as a result of fan violence in Poland during Euro 2012. Venues Leeds *National Stadium *Central Park Bowl *Alum Chine Stadium *Cola Hills Stadium *Albion Stadium Home *City Road - 42,791 *Underscore Lane - ~40,000 (expanded) *Kilnhurst Road - ~40,000 (expanded) *Leeds Road - 57,810 (new build) *North Wall Stadium - 62,912 (new build)